


Cool Girls

by lesbianbean



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: AU, Canon Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, also a playdate at the four corners monument, clandestine meetings at motels, gay pulp novel aesthetic, got damn it i love this show so much it gives me goosebumps, meth empress Skyler, or as my beta said--self care is killing ur husband and taking over his drug empire, supervillain wives, walt dies and so does the entire aryan brotherhood because fuck them, ~he had it coming~ plays in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 17:03:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11833125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianbean/pseuds/lesbianbean
Summary: In which Skyler and Lydia fall in love and take over the world together.





	Cool Girls

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration for this hit me like a train and wouldn't let me rest until it was done. I just really love the Breaking Bad ladies, and I love gay drama, and I really really want to kill Walter [toxic masculinity intensifies] White, and this was what came out of it.  
> Special thanks to my amazing beta reader @ballpoint_banana!

He came home with blood on his shirt collar. She doesn't ask about it, she never does. He stopped trying to hide the stains a month after Flynn snatched a college acceptance out of the air like the shining ring on the carousel and left home without looking back. Flynn hadn’t emailed since Thanksgiving. She uses baking soda to get the stain out and leaves it on his chair for the next day. 

After he stopped denying it to her, she sat down and worked it out. The nights he came home grinning and held her down, hissing _bitch, slut, fucking whore,_ in her ear were the nights he’d expanded his empire. The nights he was terrifyingly gentle and she noticed her hands shaking over her morning coffee--those were the nights he’d killed.

The woman first shows up at the car wash and asks for the works. She’s wearing a navy blue pantsuit and her eyes are a deep brown framed by long lashes and she reminds Skyler simultaneously of Bambi and the hunter. She catches herself staring at her mouth and reminds herself of who the woman surely is associated with, that she doesn't want anything to do with it. It doesn't work. 

That night, while he breathes evenly next to her, she slips her hand past her practical cotton underwear and thinks of the woman’s thermos with the faint imprint of red lipstick, her graceful fingers tearing the receipt. She has to stifle her gasp with her other hand so he doesn't wake up.

The woman shows up the next week, and the week after that. On the fourth week, she writes _Cholla Motel_ on the receipt in narrow handwriting, and Skyler spends the rest of her shift debating whether she should go or stay, if it’s some kind of trap, but she just can’t stand the idea of another evening of icy silence and smoking by the pool. She makes up her mind to drive there but not get out of her car, but of course that changes as soon as she sees the woman leaning against the door for room 5 with dark sunglasses and a slow smile. 

Her name is Lydia. As they undress each other, she notes that Lydia’s panties and bra match but her black kitten heels don’t. Lydia is nervous at first, but after the initial awkwardness they find that they fit together well. Afterwards, Skyler asks if she can smoke and Lydia purses her lips but nods. They talk late into the night--watching reruns of sitcoms she hasn’t seen in years and swapping stories about their children. Small things, but she hasn’t been able to talk about them for what feels like forever. When the sun starts shining through the curtains, they part, both swearing that whatever it was wouldn’t happen again. 

Of course it happens again. And again. Lydia brings expensive white wine from who-knows-where to their meetings, and Skyler makes the granola cookies that she used to bring to PTA meetings until Flynn told her that no one liked them. Lydia tells her about her job on the third night, while wiping down the mini fridge with sanitary wipes she apparently carries everywhere in her purse. 

She knows it’s serious when she wants Lydia to meet Holly. They can’t agree on where to have the meeting--the motel seems too tawdry and neither of them trust their homes. Lydia finally suggests the Four Corners Monument and Skyler feels like it’s a sign. 

They meet at the monument early in the morning, before it first opens. Skyler brings them a thermos full of coffee to share, and they sit on the hood of her car and watch the sunrise while Kiira dozes between them. The day is full of bright moments. She buys Kiira a turquoise necklace on impulse and the girl’s smile nearly melts her heart. Lydia eats her fry bread with a knife and fork and offers tiny bites of it to Holly. It’s the first time she hasn’t felt afraid in months. 

She’s listening to Lydia detail the finer process of shipments when the thought first comes to her-- _I could do that. I could do that better._ No matter how many times she pushes it down, it keeps coming back, like an acorn stubbornly bobbing on the surface of a pond. She wants to run the business with Lydia and then read Kiira and Holly bedtime stories at night. 

When she finally tells Lydia of her thoughts, she expects Lydia to laugh, or shake her head. She doesn't expect Lydia to look at her as if she’s been waiting for Skyler to catch up. 

The next day, she drives deep into the desert and watches the wind blow until her eyes fall shut. It’s the afternoon when she returns home with salt on her lips and sand between her teeth. 

She starts by shadowing her husband, as he goes about his job. She is surprisingly good at it--she learns to take a thermos of coffee with her, to bring something without much sugar or she’ll fall asleep. Her husband is the smartest man she knows, but in some ways he’s so stupid. He runs his empire the same way he runs the car wash--he’s brutal and arrogant, his disdain for everyone but himself etched so clearly on his face. She watches him browbeat his young partner, ally with men who are little more than demons wearing human skin, plot to kill off members of his inner circle who don’t march to his rhythm and she thinks of King Lear, of Richard III, of the aging despots who rage against the inevitable. He might be the danger, but she is the storm. And the storm wins. 

She comes by Jesse’s house late at night, and they talk until morning. He fills in the spaces of her husband’s transformation-- the train heist, the murder of Drew Sharp, his magic with words _(come on, Jesse, you want it just as much as I want it)._ As he speaks, his voice thick with emotion, she realizes that her husband has twisted him the same way he’s twisted her, and perhaps they were meant to be partners in his destruction. He introduces her to Mike and Saul and tells her the inner workings of Heisenberg’s empire. They agree that Jesse will stay for a month, and then Saul will set him up in Alaska. Jesse’s only other request is that he gets to kill Todd when she takes out the Brotherhood, and she agrees without question. 

It surprises her--scares her--how much she does want it. Her husband has told her about doing it for the family so many times, and she wants Holly to be safe, she wants to pay for Flynn’s education even if he won’t let her do anything else, she wants her sister to not cry about medical bills, but she wants it for herself more. Is that selfish? Perhaps, but if she had to choose between being selfish and being terrified, she’d choose being selfish in a heartbeat. 

Walt drinks the coffee she gives him without batting an eye. Jesse made the ricin. She wishes she had a camera to capture the look on his face when she told him it worked. They embrace, and he cries. 

Jesse and Mike drive with her to the desert. They only have to wait a few minutes before Lydia’s car pulls up, and Lydia gets out, just as beautiful as she was when Skyler saw her all those months ago. They face each other as the wind blows red dust past their ankles, and she sees Lydia smile. 

She proposes a merger. They shake hands, and she slips the receipt, worn out from months of riding around in her purse, into Lydia's palm. That night, they meet at the Cholla Motel again, two empresses in the desert. Afterwards, they sit together by the pool and pass a cigarette back and forth, watching the light on the crystal-blue water.


End file.
